The number one post (in terms of views) on this blog thus far has been the story about the boy from Kansas City, who happened to be white, and was walking along and set on fire by two other kids, who happen to be black.
This story came up again in the comments on a story over at CNN about a reporter using the N* word on live TV. Kudos to “Tom” who today at 5:08 CT posted:
Why has CNN not reported about the Black on White hate crime in Kansas City? Two black teenagers gasoline torching a white 13 year old and not adrop of reporting.
So that got me thinking and I did some Googling:
boy kansas city gasoline fire
11,800,000 results – News Only, 28 resultskansas city gasoline fire hate crime
380,000 results – News Only, 16 resultsflorida neighborhood watch shoots black unarmed
522,000 results – News Only, 3,700 resultsflorida neighborhood watch shoots black unarmed hate crime
68,800 results – News Only, 103 results
Wow!!
It appears the media has generally ignored the Kansas City story but the blogosphere wrote about it extensively. It also appears that both the media and the blogosphere are careful, cautious, about labeling a story a hate crime.
UPDATE: Changed formatting of the search results to better fit on the page.